Ask HN: Experiences taking time off to study?

I'm a software engineer currently taking a break from regular work to travel the world for a year or so (no real time constraint other than not wanting my career to die). I was thinking of setting up somewhere cheap in Southeast Asia with a digital nomad scene and spending some time working on my skills/projects - maybe a month or so. I have a few specific companies I would like to work for in the future so I had the idea to spend that time working on associated skills and contributing to their OS projects. This would be a non-profitable endeavour (i.e. I wouldn't be working on a money-producing side project) and I would be spending about $1000/mo to do it.

I do code in my own time back home and the main limiter is not having enough time in the day, or energy after a full work week writing job code, so I don't think staying on target would be difficult.

Has anyone done something like this? Did it help your career, or you personally, to do it? Would you recommend it?